


The Way a Fool Would Do

by Rizandace



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Everyone is Fillorian AU, Forbidden Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pining, Royalty AU, Soulmate AU, The Beast is here but it's Different
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-20 07:48:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30001632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizandace/pseuds/Rizandace
Summary: When El had asked him, Quentin had hesitated, because even at the tender age of fourteen, he’d been well aware of the way his heart and body reacted to Eliot’s very presence. He’d wondered, painfully often, what it would be like to place his hands along the expanse of Eliot’s ribs, how it would feel to press their lips together. And doing what they had done, binding themselves together forever more… it meant he’d never get to find out.(First, Eliot and Quentin end up together for the rest of their lives. Then, those lives get a lot more complicated.)
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 55
Kudos: 64
Collections: Parts of One Whole - The Magicians Soulmate Collection





	1. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh… anybody seen that show _Shadowhunters_? Or read _The Mortal Instruments_ series? Well… I sure haven’t. So if you start to read this and pick up on the thing I stole from that story, and are expecting some sort of AU based in that universe… I am sorry to disappoint. I have stolen bits and pieces, but nothing more than that. If you want further info about what the heck I am even talking about, more in the endnote.
> 
> No prior context required to dive right into this one, though, so don’t worry! For those of you who have read my other longfics, I feel I should warn you that this is way less drafted/outlined than usual. I’m basically writing this sucker by the seat of my pants. That’s all a way of saying, those lovely weekly Monday updates I’ve been able to do in the past? Probably not going to be a thing for this one. I’ll do what I can!
> 
> Thank you to Rubick for looking this first chapter over for me, it was a real help!

You never really know what you’re getting into, when you choose to take a soulmate. Before Quentin had bound himself to Eliot, he’d been forced to endure the normal barrage of questions from the Fillorian Soul Council, and then a separate barrage of questions from his cousin Julia, who had nitpicked his choice down to the marrow, pouring concern after concern into Quentin’s already terrified brain.

He’d been so frustrated with her at the time, but in retrospect he can’t blame her for her caution. The fact is, no matter how much you prepare, no matter how much you _think_ you’ve thought it all through, binding another soul to your own is unlike anything else in the world. It is impossible to know how it will feel until it’s already too late to turn back.

When Quentin thinks about those first couple of days, the overwhelming swell of emotion, the elation and devastation, the knowledge, seeping into his bones, that he’d never be alone again, all the good and the unforeseen _pain_ of such a thing… he and Eliot had been unable to bear the slightest disconnection for over a week, weepy and clingy and loving each other and hating each other so very much, the sinews of their inner selves entangling until Quentin had worried he’d forget who he was supposed to be on his own, without El there to define him. And Eliot had worried about the same thing back. Quentin knows, because Quentin had _felt_ that worry echoed back inside his head.

They’d been warned it would be that way, but there are no words that could ever prepare someone for it. And after the settling, after they’d learned to moderate and control the elastic limits of the bond, it became, as Quentin had known it would be, the most precious truth of his whole world. Eliot Waugh, his _soulmate_. Quentin Coldwater, with a soulbond, the tattooed rune stark and black against the skin by his left hip bone. The power, the status, the comfort, the peace, it was all more than Quentin had ever thought he’d be lucky enough to enjoy.

He almost hadn’t agreed.

Now, the thought of _not_ being Eliot’s soulmate is horrifying to him, in the very real sense of the word _horror_. But when El had asked him, he’d hesitated, because even at the tender age of fourteen, he’d been well aware of the way his heart and body reacted to Eliot’s very presence. He’d wondered, painfully often, what it would be like to place his hands along the expanse of Eliot’s ribs, how it would feel to press their lips together. And doing what they had done, binding themselves together forever more… it meant he’d never get to find out.

Ultimately, it was a stupid reason to hesitate over saying yes to the best and most precious relationship in his whole life. It’s not even like he was giving anything up that he already had—the whole hypothetical depended on Eliot wanting to kiss him _back_ , after all. And El loved him, obviously, but it had never been like that for him, not even as a fleeting adolescent thought.

So Q had said yes, and Julia had smiled and supported him, and he’d emerged on the other side more happy than he’d known it was possible to be.

In the old days, as Q knows from reading history books with his tutors, soulmates were arranged like political marriages. Important Fillorian families matched up their young ones, bonding them at incredibly young ages and tying the fates of entire political factions to one another through the soulrune, emblazoned upon youthful skin.

Nowadays, modern society balks at such callous and profane treatment of something so fundamentally life-altering. Children have to reach the oh-so-wizened age of fifteen before they’re allowed to create a soulbond, and many people wait until they’re much older, despite some evidence that this dilutes the power of the bond. In addition to this, the two would-be soulmates must undergo vigorous compatibility testing and affirm their devotion to the bond over a period of months before it can be approved by the council.

Lord Eliot Waugh of Broken Lineage asks Lord Quentin Coldwater of the Third House of the Crashing Sea, to be his soulmate at age fourteen, a full year before they’re allowed to actually create the bond.

Quentin agonizes over the decision for two full days, returning to find Eliot pale with lack of sleep, desperate for a response. Saying yes is one of the happiest memories of his life. He can still close his eyes and see the way relief and elation had bloomed across El’s young face, the way they’d jumped into each other’s arms and laughed in unmitigated joy like a couple of loons, until one of Q’s family’s stewards caught them jumping on the couches in the sitting room and had frowned at them censoriously until they’d calmed down.

And they get all the pesky testing and affirmations and council debates out of the way, so that by the time Quentin turns fifteen, a full seven months after Eliot, they’re ready to make the commitment. It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to them both, after the first few impossible, unspeakable days of adjustment. They walk around Castle Whitespire for months with an extra bounce in their step, enjoying the looks of awe and fear that follow them wherever they go, as they luxuriate in the full golden glow of magic’s most sacred gift.

Quentin likes to think he didn’t _know_ he was in love with Eliot when he bonded with him.

Or certainly he hadn’t known when he first _agreed_. He likes to think that his desire to belong to Eliot had been as pure as everyone always says soulmates are supposed to be. That at the tender young age of fourteen, he’d been genuine when he’d turned to his dearest friend in the world, held his hands tight, and promised to stay with him forever. That if he had once briefly thought of Eliot’s body in a less than brotherly way, it was nothing more than a consequence of puberty. Insignificant, in the face of what they are to each other now.

Never mind that eight years later, he still can’t imagine himself loving anyone else. Never mind that the thought of his more-or-less required marriage to an eligible member of the Fillorian nobility makes Quentin’s stomach hurt so bad he keeps waking El up in the middle of the night with the pain of it. Never mind the shameful times he’s built up the walls extra high around his mind, blocking his soulmate from seeing into him, as he touches himself picturing the graceful lines of El’s hands, bucking and coming at the thought of letting the mental walls slip, letting El _know_ what Q’s doing on the other side of the barrier...

But maybe Quentin _had_ known. Maybe, despite the desperately strong joy he carries with him every day, merely knowing his soul belongs to Eliot, he did something wrong, in agreeing all those years ago. Maybe it was deceitful, maybe Eliot would be horrified to know he’d bound himself forever more to a man who can’t stop lusting after his soulmate, the deepest and most forbidden taboo there is.

It’s a moot point, either way. Attraction is fleeting, or so he’s been told. Love is fickle. Even marriage need not be permanent or restrictive, if spouses prove to be less than compatible. There’s nothing permanent under the sun, with one exception.

Soulmates are forever, and forever with Eliot is exactly what Quentin has always wanted.

*****

Eliot wakes up slowly, his head fuzzy with strange dreams. As is his habit, he reaches first inside his mind to find the thread of the bond, searching for Q along the length of it, reorienting his waking consciousness to the presence of another. In sleep, things can get blurry between them, and it always takes a minute to remind himself of who he is, and who Q is, and the boundaries that must exist between those two things.

Today, there is no murkiness. Quentin has attempted to keep his side of the bond blocked, so Eliot can feel only the baseline fact of his presence and nothing more. But something unpleasant and miserable is leaking through Quentin’s shoddy protections.

Eliot frowns, sighs, squirms into his comfortable mattress for another minute, and then stands up, making his way to the door that connects his chambers directly to Quentin’s.

He nudges at Quentin through the bond, a gentle caress. Sometimes, if they’re close to one another physically and concentrating really hard, they can pass complex thoughts directly into one another’s minds, and have almost entire conversations without saying a word. This is considered extremely rare and the sign of a particularly strong bond, but Eliot and Q don’t go around bragging about such things, for obvious reasons. Usually, sensations, feelings, general impressions and inquiries can pass between them easily. This morning, Eliot lets a gentle inquisitiveness pass through the bond, a tentative _let me in_.

He feels Quentin’s hesitation, and then a mournful acceptance, and Eliot swings the unlocked door open between them.

“Hey, Q,” Eliot says out loud, his voice a practiced balance between cheerful and commiserating. His soulmate is not a fan of condescension, but it’s simply a fact that sometimes the poor boy requires some coddling.

“Four,” Quentin says, before Eliot can ask.

The scale of Quentin’s Melancholy is from one to ten, with one being his baseline everyday tendency towards pessimism, and ten being… well, Eliot has only seen Quentin at a ten one time, and it’s not a memory he’s keen to revisit first thing in the morning.

“You know what that means,” Eliot tells him firmly, squatting down next to the lump of Quentin on the bed. He reaches a hand out and brushes hair out of his squished face, fingers tracing the creases of linen against his skin. Eliot’s heart lurches with the familiar wish that he could climb into the bed beside Quentin, fold their bodies together. He wants to have woken up here, beside him, instead of in the next room over. He ignores the longing. He’s long since gotten used to it.

“I don’t wanna,” Quentin says, petulant.

“You’re the one who said four.”

“That’s because you won’t let me get away with lying,” Quentin says. Eliot tugs on his elbow and Quentin sighs, sitting up with apparently extreme effort. _Four_ means he feels like garbage, but actually leaving his room, getting some food, and forcing himself through normal routines will probably make it better. _Five_ means he gets to stay in and be treated like an invalid, at least for a day.

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Eliot says, slipping affection and sturdiness along to Quentin through the bond, lending him whatever mental strength he can. “You’re going to freshen up, get dressed, come to the breakfast room, and I’ll have all your favorites waiting for you before we’ve got check-in.”

Quentin squints at him, frowning, but his own walls are slipping even further, and Eliot can feel his reluctant acquiescence, his gratitude. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

Eliot smiles, pretends his heart isn’t constricting painfully in his chest. Breathe through it, and it’ll go away. “A question not even the gods can answer.” He tilts his head, quirks an eyebrow, and pulls Quentin to standing, tugging him forward to place a kiss against his forehead. “Now hurry up. Your gloominess made me sleep in.”

Quentin gives him the mental equivalent of an eye-roll, his face remaining passive and innocent. Eliot quirks a mental eyebrow at him right back, a silent _try me_ , _Coldwater_. Quentin sighs dramatically, then turns to get ready for his day.

*****

After breakfast, which does indeed seem to perk Quentin up a bit, to Eliot’s delight, they head together for the Magician’s Hall. This full wing of Castle Whitespire is dedicated to the noble-blooded magic users of Fillory, and has been decorated with an austere grandeur that equals that of the Chatwin’s royal residence elsewhere in the castle, but still maintains its own unique flavor. This part of the castle feels utilitarian, like people use the space for useful things instead of merely to awe visitors with the splendor of noble riches.

It is here that they will get their assignments for the day, from their boss, Henry Fogg of the Sixth House of the Crystal Lake. He’s been in the position for nearly two decades now, and spends his days wrangling the magically gifted members of all of Fillory’s most noble houses. It’s not a job Eliot envies. He knows for a fact he was a nightmare to handle when he’d first arrived, aged ten, grieving and angry, lashing out at anyone who tried to offer him a kind word.

(And Henry Fogg is not much for kind words to begin with.)

These days the Master of Magical Operations is forced to treat Eliot with some measure of respect. Eliot’s a fully adult Lord of Fillory now, after all, despite his broken lineage. He’d once been of a Fourth House, before losing it, and even those who no longer retain their house’s title still often carry the imprint of prestige their absent house would have granted them. And more important than the unwanted remains of his family’s honor following him around, Eliot is in possession of a soulmate. He’s bonded, in fact, to a member of a Third House. Fogg, while nominally a member of a Noble House, is only a _Sir_ , and not a _Lord_. If it rankles him, his relative unimportance compared to his students, Fogg never shows it.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Fogg greets them when Eliot and Quentin enter the room. Julia Wicker of the Third House of the Razed Forest is already there, as is Alice Quinn of the Second House of the Eagles’ Roost. They’re missing a few of their usual number, but Fogg explains their absences before Eliot and Quentin have even found their seats.

“I’ve sent Penny and Kady out early this morning,” he declares, and Eliot feels a stir of confusion and alarm zing along the bond from Quentin. He echoes it back automatically, settling down on one of the uncomfortable stone benches around the perimeter of the room.

They all come here every morning for an assignment, but it’s been months since there’s been anything at all to do. Usually they get perfunctory instructions to maintain their regular patrol and report back with anything unusual, and the rest of their time is their own. Eliot has gotten used to the luxury of the rich and titled, has almost come to view his duties as an appointed member of the Magician’s Court as nothing more than a symbolic role.

“What happened?” Quentin asks, leaning slightly closer into Eliot’s space, for comfort. Eliot can feel the urge in his soulmate to go burrow under blankets and hide himself from the world. It’s a bad day for something unusual to be happening, something that might throw Quentin’s shaky equilibrium further out of alignment. Eliot tries not to let himself be irritated with Fogg for this. He’s only the messenger, after all.

“Some strange activity, in the Orchards,” Fogg says.

The Southern Orchards is a large and sweeping forest, so named because in the ancient days of Fillory the land there was cultivated, only to later grow wild and untamable. There are still patches of the forest where the trees grow in oddly uniform lines, or where fresh fruit swings invitingly low on hanging branches. It’s a deeply magical place, but usually benign, as long as the local folk don’t upset the balance by taking too many creatures for food, or felling too many trees for fuel.

It’s also too close to Castle Whitespire for comfort, if indeed something more sinister is making itself known.

“Strange in what way?” Julia asks, biting her lower lip.

“Strange in…” Fogg tilts his head, as if trying to decide how to put it. “A human way.”

There could hardly have been a more alarming answer to Julia’s question. Eliot shifts in his seat, grabbing Q’s wrist in his hand without looking. His anchor, through anything and everything. “The Beast?”

Fogg gives Eliot a shrewd look. Eliot’s early interactions with the Beast are not spoken of in polite company, but they’re hardly a secret. He can feel every eye in the room turned to look at him. Except Q, who doesn’t have to look to know exactly the mix of emotions rocketing through him at the very thought. It’s been thirteen years since the Beast… but why would he turn up now? And why in the Orchards?

“No,” Fogg says. Then, after a pause, “well, I should be more precise. Early reports suggest not. But the magic is foreign and powerful, and we cannot identify the caster.”

Every magician in Fillory is known to the Crown. There are so precious few of them, it seems impossible that anyone could have slipped through the cracks. An unknown caster can only mean a caster from somewhere else. Loria, maybe, or the Wandering Hoard. In any case, _not good_.

“And you sent Kady and Penny out there alone?” Alice asks, managing to straddle the line between a genuine question and outright chastisement of their de facto boss. She is of a Second House, the highest ranking person in the room. She can get away with speaking to anyone however she wishes, and has become an expert at deploying the privilege selectively.

Fogg raises an eyebrow at her. He’d hardly have maintained his position without standing firm in the face of the nobility’s caprices. “No, indeed I did not. I sent them to scout the perimeter. They are not to enter, and not to engage, but to come straight back here to report their findings.”

Eliot’s unease only grows. He knows Pen and Kady about as well as he knows anybody. If something dangerous tries to poke its nose out of the shelter of the trees, their curiosity and lust for a good fight will get the better of them. They’ve been itching for conflict for weeks, now.

“And then what?” Julia asks, but Fogg hardly needs to answer.

“Then, pending their report, we’ll send in our best.” He lifts an eyebrow in Eliot and Quentin’s direction. “Unless the two of you have any objections?”

A frisson of fear passes between the two of them, and Eliot can’t even tell if it originated with himself or with Quentin. They’re used to strange magics, to threatening animals and plants that would kill you as soon as look at you. But _human_ threats… the idea of fighting a fellow human magician, one of the few granted the mysterious and bounteous gift of the Chatwins… well, they’ve trained for it. But short of the Beast reappearing at last, it had always seemed a hypothetical consideration.

“No objections,” Quentin says, a little too loudly. “It’s our honor to serve.”

Eliot disagrees, and he lets Quentin know without moving a muscle. It’s hardly an honor, no matter the titles and how they dress it up for the masses. It’s more like the only work men like them are likely to get.

But this is an old argument.

“Want to go warm up?” Eliot asks his partner in everything. “You can come watch,” he continues, turning to Alice and Julia and quirking his lip up at the corner. “If you’re looking for some combat pointers.”

“His ego truly astounds,” Julia says to Alice with an eye-roll. And then she turns to Quentin. “Keep that soulmate of yours in his place, Q.”

Q and Eliot stand together, moving in fluid harmony towards the door. “Oh, he’s in his place,” Quentin says, teasing reassurance in every word. He curls a hand around Eliot’s elbow, like he’s staking a claim.

*****

Sparring with Eliot is one of Quentin’s most treasured daily activities. It is exquisite torture, of course, to move his body in rhythm with El’s, to touch him, to pin him to the ground, to _be_ pinned to the ground, to smell the sweat of his exertion. But it’s also the only way he gets to have any of it, and he tries, he _really_ tries, not to be a pervert about it when at all possible.

It’s not just his overactive imagination that makes the activity fun for him. There really is something so pure and exalted and freeingly physical about the action, an art to their magic and their bodies, proof positive to the world of how perfectly they fit together. Whenever visiting noble children come to the castle, especially those who are considering soulbonding for themselves, Eliot and Quentin are asked to put on a little exhibition of their combined talents.

They’re stunning together, their instincts and their minds working always in uncanny unison. Eliot throws knives over his shoulder and Quentin catches them between his hands without looking. Quentin allows Eliot to trip him up so he can roll into a full flip and land on his feet. He blocks blows before Eliot has moved to make them. When they’re fighting one another, it turns into a performance, more often than not. Good exercise, a fine honing of skills. A system in perfect balance.

Quentin remembers the first time he and El had ever sparred. It was only a week or so after they had first met, two children with no idea what they would become to each other.

Eliot had shown up at the Coldwater estate, a wiry tall youth ten years of age, declared himself of Broken Lineage, and all but demanded sanctuary as the old laws of Fillory required. Lord Theodore Coldwater, Head of the Third House of the Crashing Sea, would have granted him sanctuary even if he’d been a nobody from nowhere, and in fact at first, both young Quentin and his father had assumed that was exactly what he was.

It hadn’t mattered—they’d taken him in, gotten him food and warm water and a place to sleep, and then the next morning, allowed him to unburden himself of his story.

It had been… quite the story. It had started with a dramatic bang, with the loss of Eliot’s parents, the Lord and Lady of a Fourth House of Fillory. Eliot, even as frightened and shaken as he had clearly been, had been thorough in describing the strange and terrible Beast who had cut them down right in front of Eliot. And then his miraculous escape, the way he’d run, and hadn’t stopped running until he’d found somewhere he thought he might be safe.

Quentin remembers hearing the story, and finding that kind of strength miraculous. He’d been in awe of this strange half-starved boy, the way he’d appeared out of nowhere to take up all the space in an estate otherwise gloomy and uninteresting. And he’d never met someone of _Broken Lineage_ before. He’d always been warned that such people were ill luck, having lost the protection of their house, but Eliot had seemed as noble and honorable as anyone else Quentin had ever met.

And just a couple of days later, Eliot had found Quentin in the gymnasium, working on his battle magic and physical fighting technique with his Master. Eliot had insisted on a duel. Quentin, startled at his vehemence, had said yes. And then had been summarily destroyed.

Quentin knows now, of course, why Eliot had insisted on fighting him. It had been a power play, a way to assert some form of dominance in a situation where he felt unmoored and without a single advantage. But at the time, Quentin had been dismayed at this stranger’s fierce skill and violent behavior.

Sparring was one thing, but Eliot had done something else when he’d slammed Quentin’s sturdy body to the ground, ignoring the boundaries of the safety mats, and forcing him to tap out his defeat against the floor. Quentin hadn’t minded losing to a worthy opponent, but he couldn’t believe the uncouth and ungentlemanly way that some random refugee of a nearly destroyed fourth house had dared to behave in such a way to the future master of the house where he’d claimed sanctuary.

Eliot had been proud of his victory at first, but then uncertain and afraid when Quentin had informed him that Theodore Coldwater wasn’t going to take kindly to a stranger entering his home and doing physical damage to his only son and heir.

Quentin had in fact been quite sure that if he told his father what Eliot had done to him, Eliot would be sent away. He’d wanted to do it, run to his father, take back some measure of the authority that Eliot had stripped from him in battle. But he didn’t. He didn’t, because even at the very start, even despite his humiliation and anger, Q hadn’t wanted Eliot to go away. Eliot was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him, the first spark of life he’d managed to find since his mother had died. So instead, Quentin had kept quiet, he’d used clumsy magic to heal up his split lip, and he’d won Eliot’s loyalty from that moment forward.

Nowadays, Eliot would probably rather ritually flog himself than cause Quentin even a twinge of unnecessary pain. The point of their sparring is no longer who _wins_ , although Eliot is still usually the one who comes out on top, due to what he would describe as a “scrappy childhood”.

Instead, working together in this way is more about refining their technique, preparing themselves for the rare occasions when they have to fight something _else_ , for the protection of Fillory and the Crown.

Alone on the practice mats on the training hall, and without the need for a single word between them, they slip into a familiar formation. A few hand-to-hand rounds ending with Quentin on his back, El’s hands pinning his shoulders to the mat. Then they add some force magic, then introduce practice blades. Quentin actually gets one in under Eliot’s guard towards the end of the session, although Quentin suspects El is going easier on him than usual, given his fragile mood.

(He lets Eliot get away with the gentleness, knowing exactly how much he scares his soulmate whenever his own mind gets in his way.)

“I’m worried about Pen and Kady,” Quentin admits when they’re done, sitting side by side against the wall of the gym.

“I was trying to get your mind off of that,” Eliot says, nudging their shoulders together.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have pulled your punches, then,” Quentin retorts, but there’s no real bite to it. He’s too tired, pleasantly sore from hitting the ground, muscles tingling and blood singing with adrenaline.

“You think you’re funny but you’re not funny,” Eliot says, poking him in the chest with a single admonitory finger. “Penny and Kady are fine. They’re the best in the field. Well, besides us, of course.”

That goes without saying, and Quentin doesn’t even try to suppress the feeling of smugness that Eliot’s words cause. He lets the pride filter through so Eliot can feel it, and Eliot answers him with a surge of confidence and joy. They’re soulmates. The _only_ bonded pair currently in residence in Whitespire’s Magician’s Court. Everything they do is amplified between them, Quentin’s strength becoming Eliot’s, and the other way around. The rest of their team is fantastic, incredible, but none of them have a soul-rune.

“I think we’ve all gotten complacent,” Quentin says, bringing the conversation back to the issue at hand. “I woke up this morning with the weirdest feeling.”

Well, Eliot already knows that, doesn’t he? He’d entered the room practically on tip-toe, concern radiating off of him in waves. He thinks he’s good at tamping it down, but he never is. Still, if Quentin isn’t too far down into the abyss of his own mind, Eliot’s concern helps quite a lot. It reminds him that there’s someone in the world who literally wouldn’t survive it if he…

It’s not always the healthiest motivation to keep him trudging through his days, but it’s undeniably effective in a pinch. Besides, this morning wasn’t… that. Quentin knows what it feels like when his own mind attacks him for no good reason at all, and this had felt different. He’s getting the strangest sense, from magic itself, like the air around them is trying to send messages. Something is coming. Some sort of reckoning. A change bigger than any they’ve weathered before.

Quentin can’t say everything in his life is perfect. But he can say that generally speaking, he’s pretty happy with it. The thought of a change, a change in the shape of some alarming human threat in the Southern Orchards, has him on edge more even than usual.

“Tell me,” Eliot says, generous as always with his attention.

“There are things in my life I couldn’t stand to lose,” Quentin says. _You’re at the top of that list_. This fact is also implied, existing tangibly between them, humming along the strands of the bond. He doesn’t have to say it out loud. In fact, he’s not sure he _can_ say it out loud. “And I get the strangest feeling that those things are at risk.”

“It’s been too quiet for too long,” Eliot says. “Until this morning I’ve been taking it for granted, the fact that magic has been behaving itself.”

“No unnatural monsters to slay, no energy disturbances throwing the world out of order.”

“It’s been a nice break,” Eliot says, wistful.

“It’s been a biding of time,” Quentin corrects.

“Who’s doing the biding?”

“That,” Quentin says, “is what I’m so afraid of.”

*****

The Southern Orchard Forest is one of Quentin’s favorite places in all of Fillory. From a distance, or along the outer edges of its dense growths, the trees have a cheerful, inviting look, ripe with fruit and edible leaves to eat, low branches perfect for relaxing with a good book. Before he and El had come of age and joined the Magician’s Court as full members, they’d sneak off with the help of their friend Penny Adiyodi of the Second House of the Silver Moon, who was able to use his traveling magic to take them straight to their favorite tree for an afternoon of leisure, then pop back to whisk them home again before anyone could miss them for the evening meal. Asking for Penny’s help in this sort of getaway always came with a price, however, and as they got older he became less and less willing to be their personal means of escape.

So it’s been a while since Quentin has looked up into the inviting sturdy bows of the orchard trees, or stared into the gloom of the dirt path twisting away from warmth and into shadow. It feels a bit like a homecoming, but there’s a sense of foreboding, staring into the gloom. Something’s in there. Something that shouldn’t be.

Eliot’s mental voice echoes in his head. _Ready?_

 _Stay close to me_ , Quentin thinks back and Eliot shifts a bit closer, in reassurance. The fact that El had decided not to speak out loud tells Quentin everything he needs to know. They’re both scared.

Penny and Kady’s information had been alarming and yet annoyingly vague. Based on their diagnostic spellwork, they were almost certain it was a single entity inside the woods. They were also certain that whoever it was, they were generating a magical field of incredible strength and power, far more than should have been possible for a single caster.

On the more reassuring side of things, Penny and Kady said the magic didn’t _feel_ like the Beast’s work. They’d all gotten more than used to that sickly, angry signature, weaving through the land, corrupting otherwise ordinary creatures into puppets of the Beast’s will. This, whatever it is, doesn’t have that same tangy taste of blood and rage.

Well… maybe there is some rage. Quentin shivers as he and Eliot step into the shadows under the trees, winding their way down a footpath that becomes narrow and snarled with roots only a few dozen feet past the tree line. Whoever is casting, there is anger there. Desperation. Grief, maybe. It sits heavy on the back of Quentin’s tongue, weighs his heart down into his stomach.

Eliot takes his hand, squeezes it, and Quentin lets their fingers tangle together. It’s an indulgence they probably wouldn’t allow themselves inside Castle Whitespire, but here it’s safe. It’s necessary.

Quentin feels a nudge in his mind, a more direct vision passing from Eliot through to him. The fingers around his own squeeze harder, as an image of an angry crocodile, eyes blazing with an orange glow, snaps forward at Quentin along the bank of a muddy river. It’s Eliot’s memory of an event that had taken place three years ago, another dangerous solo mission assigned to the bonded pair.

Quentin sends back an image of what he remembers happening next, Eliot swooping down out of the air, dropping on the creature from above, giving Q the time he needed to prepare a killing blow. Quentin gives a mental nod of understanding. Eliot will get up in the face of whoever is casting the magic, and Quentin will bring them down.

 _Non-lethally_ , Eliot reminds Quentin. _Unless absolutely necessary._

 _Then don’t get too close,_ Quentin says back. _If you’re in any danger…_

They’re getting closer, and the air around them is filled with static, magic building beneath their feet and pressing between the trunks of trees surrounding them on all sides. There’s really no path left to speak of; they’re merely trusting to their instincts, to the pull of the spell being cast somewhere deeper in the forest. It’s occurred to them both that the spell itself is not exactly subtle. Whoever’s casting, they don’t mind being found. Which means there’s every chance they’re walking straight into a trap.

“El, promise me,” Quentin says as they creep their way closer.

“It’s not the Beast, Q,” Eliot says, which is as good an answer as any. “I’d feel it if it was.”

“Alright, but—”

“Risking myself is risking you, and you know I won’t do that,” Eliot says.

It’s reassuring, but maybe not as reassuring as Quentin wants it to be.

Ahead, Quentin sees light, a strange icy pink emanating out of the gloom of the forest. They’re almost there. He squeezes Eliot’s hand once more for good measure, and then disentangles their fingers, bringing his hands up in front of him, ready to cast.

Eliot gives him a brief glance, and then his strides lengthen, as he steps out in front of Quentin, ready to loop around and try to approach the threat from another angle. Quentin closes his eyes and centers himself before creeping forward, allowing his mind to slip into that inbetween place, the bond wide open between him and Eliot. He can’t see precisely through Eliot’s eyes, but he can sense him, know when he’s moving and when he’s standing still, the give of the dirt and foliage under his feet. Silently, Quentin casts a muffling charm on himself to further mask his own approach, and he gathers his power inside of him, ready to burst forth and subdue the unknown threat.

And then…

He gasps, a sudden shock of pain ricocheting through his ribs and down to his toes. His knees nearly buckle, but he catches himself on the rough bark of the nearest tree. He swallows, barely stopping a strangled yelp from escaping his throat. The pain hadn’t been his own. Which makes it even worse. Gods _damn_ it.

He tugs harder on the bond in frantic worry, and propels himself forward, abandoning stealth in favor of speed as he rushes towards Eliot’s last known position. The pain is already fading, leaving the sting of tears in his eyes but also the knowledge that whatever’s happened to his soulmate, it’s not fatal. It almost feels like someone shoved him, hard, knocking all the wind out of him. But where—

 _Q, don’t come any closer_ , Eliot says inside Quentin’s mind, but Quentin ignores him entirely. It’s not a strategic command: it’s laced with fear, like he wants to warn Quentin back from walking straight into trouble. But Quentin doesn’t have a choice, does he? It’s not like he can leave without El.

It’s not really a clearing, that he steps into. Or at least, it wasn’t a clearing until very recently. He can see flattened bushes and fallen trees, their trunks still firm with recent life where they lay scattered on the forest floor. It seems impossible that they hadn’t noticed the devastation earlier, but something about the caster’s magic must explain that. There’s an aura to the woman standing in the middle of the clearing, like she’s simultaneously calling Quentin towards her, but also obscuring all detail of what exactly she’s doing. Her hands don’t appear to be moving. Whatever she’s set in motion, it’s happening all on its own.

Eliot is pinned against one of the trees still standing, right on the edge of the woman-made clearing where this unknown magician has caused such destruction. He’s straining against invisible bonds, his face pinched tight in fear. But he’s not in pain anymore. Quentin would know if he were.

“Hello,” Quentin says, approaching with as much confidence as he can muster. There’s no plan of attack anymore. She has Eliot trapped, which means diplomacy is his only choice.

The woman, whose eyes had been on Eliot, turns to face him instead. She’s floating several inches off the ground, Quentin sees, and in one of her hands she clutches a bright, smooth stone, the size of a clenched fist. It emanates a pale pink glow, lighting up the woman’s veins and turning her eyes a strange watery red as she focuses on Quentin. “Who are you?” she asks, her voice echoing strangely in the clearing, amplified by power.

“My name is Quentin. Could you maybe… stop whatever you’re doing?”

She blinks at him, clearly not having expected the simple request. “I’m searching,” she says. “I have to find—”

She blinks, and the red in her eyes flicker. She looks down at the stone in her hand as if seeing it for the first time. Then she looks over to Eliot, frowns, and twitches her free hand in the air. Eliot collapses, breathing hard, at the base of the tree.

 _I’m okay_ , he projects to Quentin, before Q can ask. _Keep talking to her_.

“Uh. Who are _you_ , then?” Quentin says, trying to pretend he’s met an interesting stranger while exploring the market, instead of encountering a woman with an incredibly powerful magical anchor stone in the middle of a wild forest.

The woman sways in the air, her hair standing up in the static of the magic she’s created. He still can’t identify the spell, but Penny and Kady had been right about one thing: it doesn’t feel malicious, or anything like the Beast’s power. There’s almost a yearning to it, a sadness that resonates with Quentin all too well.

“I’m…” the woman can’t seem to take her eyes off the stone in her hand. Slowly, her feet drift towards the ground until she’s standing firm. The long strands of her dark hair descend to lie in tangled waves around her face.

Then she closes her eyes, and her hands drop to her sides. The stone goes dull, the magic in the air fading away into nothing but the usual ambient buzz. It’s only now that the spell is fading, that Quentin realizes how little control its caster had over what was happening. When the woman looks up, she takes in the dead plants around her with keen interest, almost disbelief, walking in a tight circle to view the devastation. She looks back at the stone, then to Eliot, who has pulled himself to his feet, then over to Quentin.

“Under the authority of Castle Whitespire,” Quentin begins, but she holds a hand up, and magic curls his tongue back in his throat, forcing him silent.

“Hey,” Eliot snaps, and he rushes forward to Quentin, turning his back on their unknown enemy with the same recklessness that had sent Quentin rushing into this clearing without a plan. “Don’t touch him.”

The silencing charm fades almost at once, and Quentin breathes, opens his mouth, unsure. She’s not making any sort of threatening moves, really. Not right now. Without being sure of where she got that anchor stone, or what she meant to do with the spell she was casting, Quentin’s not even sure if this woman has broken any laws, in the strictest sense. Still, he knows for a fact that the king and queen will want her to be brought in.

“You’ll have to come with us,” Eliot says, his body angled just slightly in front of Quentin’s.

She shakes her head at him, looks up, and the last bit of dazed confusion finally leaves her eyes. They’re wide, beautiful, brown, fierce and resentful and imploring all at once. She meets Eliot’s stare head-on, and then she speaks. Her voice is stilted, formal, almost like she’s memorized these words and doesn’t want to mess them up now that she’s finally found someone to say them to.

“My name is Margo Hanson of Broken Lineage. I require your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some background on this concept, for those who are interested...
> 
> Several years back, in order to have something to share with a younger cousin of mine, I tried to watch the Freeform show _Shadowhunters_. I’m not enough of a hypocrite to be a snob about this show (I’ve seen every episode of _The Vampire Diaries_ , y’all), but let’s just say that _Shadowhunters_ was not really for me. It didn’t grab my interest. With one notable exception…
> 
> The concept of the Parabatai Bond. Basically, it’s this idea that the society of “shadowhunters” have this special bond they can create between two people, where they tattoo a permanent sacred rune onto each other’s bodies, and then become linked forever more. The details are a bit fuzzy, at least from what I saw of the show, which, again, wasn’t much. But Parabatai can do different, more intense magic than people without a Parabatai, they can sense when one another is hurt, they feel it if the other person dies… they get a sense for each other’s moods and emotions in a vague sort of way, although there’s not any actual mind-reading as far as I am aware.
> 
> Oh, and another thing about Parabatai? It is absolutely, 100%, extremely taboo, for Parabtai to be romantically or sexually involved. It is a bond of the “purest” platonic strength. It is more than brotherhood, more than friendship. It is a soul connection that is granted the utmost respect and even awe among the shadowhunter society… and if you fall in love with your Parabatai and someone finds out about it? Hooo boy. You’re getting kicked right out of the magical underworld. You’re cut off from your community forever.
> 
> So, in other words, it’s that good forbidden love shit.
> 
> In watching the snippets of the show that I did see (I even wrote fic about it, hand-waving the context to the breaking point and relying on YouTube clips and the fan wiki), I was fascinated by the idea of a society that prioritized and honored platonic love, that treated it as more sacred and unbreakable than marriage vows…. but that also stigmatized certain expressions of that devotion, in a way that equates the lack of sex or romance as something more “pure” and “elevated” than a traditional romantic partnership could ever be.
> 
> It reminded me a lot, actually, of the way straights will push back against the shipping of two men or two women in TV shows, as somehow “cheapening” the depth of the bond by making it about sex. _“Dean and Cas are family, you guys! Their love is eternal, but they don’t want to bang each other, don’t make it weird!!”_ We’ve all heard this kind of argument. And I want to take a trope from a ridiculous low-budget TV show made for tweens, and shove it onto Queliot, and try and do something with this whole mess.
> 
> So… in this story, Quentin and Eliot become platonic soulmates. And then what happens? Well, it’s Queliot, y’all. You know what happens.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your comments on the first chapter! We're still laying out the pieces on the chessboard here... I'm excited to hear what you think.

Margo Hanson of Broken Lineage is short and petite, but somehow the exact opposite of _small_. In fact, just being near her makes _Quentin_ feel small, and not entirely in a bad way. She takes up space in the world the way Eliot does, sucking all the attention and energy towards herself, so that Quentin can find room for himself in the gaps leftover, the inbetween where he’s always been most comfortable.

Even before they all make it back to Castle Whitespire, Margo proves herself to be a woman without an ounce of shyness in her, and no proof of humility, either. Despite the fact that she’s one woman against two arguably more powerful men, despite the fact that she’s asked them for help, has put herself under sanctuary protections, she somehow still gives off the aura of being in charge of the whole situation. In other words, despite the scare she’d given them all, she’s a bit difficult not to like. Quentin is surrounded by people with conviction and pride; he’s always gravitated towards them like a person aware of his own lack, desperate to grasp onto their purpose for his own.

And as her story starts pouring out of her, with very little prompting from Eliot or Quentin, he starts to feel a strange sense of déjà vu. Eliot had come to Quentin once, only a boy, and shared his own tale of woe. Margo too has run to the inner sanctum of the most protected interior of Whitespire, fleeing tragedy and desperate for refuge. She too seems equal parts pissed off and terrified, the enormity of an unknown future stretching out before her, a broken lineage yanking her expected path right out from under her feet.

And she too brings tidings of the Beast.

As the three of them walk together, Margo in the middle, Quentin and Eliot acting as somewhat awkward guards for a prisoner they’re no longer sure they have any reason to arrest, Margo describes the man who appeared in her family’s home, the obscure magics covering his face, moths fluttering out like a warning before the violence erupted. The corruption and overwhelming power of his magical ability, the way it had all happened out of nowhere and how there had been no time to stop it. Blood, heat, panic, death.

It’s hard not to stop in the middle of the woods and pull Eliot aside, into his arms, sooth the building stress he can sense in his soulmate at this recitation of his own personal trauma. But they have a job to do, so they keep walking instead, balancing two conversations between them simultaneously. The first is simple enough: they coax further information out of Margo, grilling her on how she managed to escape, on where she found the stone she’d been using to power that spell back in the heart of the forest, what exactly she’d been trying to do with so much magic unaided. They gather some information, like the fact that the stone has belonged to Margo’s family for years, but Quentin gets the very real sense it’s only the information Margo has decided she’s willing to part with.

The second conversation is happening in total silence, between Quentin and Eliot, and exists mostly in impressions. Things like: _what if the Beast followed her? Can we trust her? Should we try and take the anchor stone from her before she does anything else crazy? Is she telling the truth?_

It’s mostly for the sake of comfort, really a precursor for a conversation they’ll have to have later with the rest of their friends, once they’ve got privacy from this strange new arrival on the scene. There’s solidarity, to knowing that whatever they decide, they’ll decide together. Almost like a backlash against Margo’s obvious isolation. Quentin and Eliot will never have to know that kind of individual terror again. Quentin will stand between Eliot and the loneliness of loss, bat it away with a stick if he has to.

Once they’ve reached Penny on the outskirts of the Orchards and he’s traveled them back to the castle, Margo has to repeat her story to Fogg. And then, as Quentin had suspected would happen, Fogg suggests she be given an audience with the king and queen so she can explain it all to them in her own words. This, whether Margo is aware of it or not, is a big deal. Her arrival is virtually unprecedented in Fillory. It feels rude to keep peppering her with the same essential inquiry: but where did you _come_ from? And yet that’s the crux of it—how did Whitespire not know about a fully adult Fillorian magician, one untrained, unassigned within the Court?

“A girl could get tired of repeating herself,” Margo says as they lead her to the monarchs. “Luckily, I don’t mind the sound of my own voice.”

And so it is that Quentin finds himself in the king and queen’s audience chamber, along with El, Fogg, and the rest of the Court, listening to Margo’s story for the third time.

Queen Jane and King Rupert listen to Margo with the same amount of attention and respect they show to all their subjects, despite Margo’s somewhat confusing and unclear claim to Fillorian citizenship. And not even Margo, seemingly staunch in her desire to tell her own story in her own damn time, can avoid letting a bit more information leak out.

It starts when Queen Jane offers her condolences for the loss of Margo’s family. “I’m afraid I do not recognize the name of Hanson, my dear. But the loss of a Fillorian Noble House is a tragedy indeed. To whom did you once belong?”

Margo quirks a confused eyebrow at this question and then her face goes smooth as she understands. “Oh, because I said Broken Lineage? No, my old Fillorian House isn’t dead.”

_What?_

Eliot, standing next to Quentin, tilts so their arms are brushing, mentally repeating the astonished question.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite…” the queen begins delicately, waiting for Margo to fill in the missing information.

She does, although she acts like she’s doing them all a favor by deigning to speak. “I left them. Six years ago or so. As far as I know they’re still alive, but I certainly haven’t bothered to check.” She looks around the room, noting their shock, and seems to steel herself, to pull the brash, no-nonsense attitude she’s been displaying tighter around herself, like armor. “You shouldn't feel too bad for them, they were truly evil people who certainly didn’t deserve the honor of my continued presence.”

Quentin catches a mental guffaw of amusement from Eliot, and surreptitiously elbows his soulmate in the ribs. It’s not funny. Okay, maybe it’s a little funny, but it’s also… well, it’s also something else.

Margo does not seem at all in awe to be face-to-face with the Immortal Monarchs of Fillory. Quentin, who lives in the same castle with them and has been known to say a polite, casual “good morning, Your Majesty” to Queen Jane when they pass in the halls, can’t say he’s ever managed such a level of ease and comfort around his sovereigns. They’re… well, they are majestic, in the truest sense of the word. As much as Quentin admires Margo’s stalwart bravery and sense of purpose, he’ll admit that her lack of deference irks him, just the smallest amount.

King Rupert takes the new information in stride, his face not so much as twitching at this revelation. “So then this villain you speak of, the one we know as the Beast… who exactly did he attack?”

Margo’s jocularity falls away at once. “My… my chosen family. The people I’ve lived with for the past several years.”

“And the Beast killed them?” Jane asks, kindly.

Margo hesitates for a second, like all the words have gone out of her, and then nods once, like admitting this is almost too much for her.

Quentin feels terrible for her. It’s impossible not to. But he’s also remembering Margo in that clearing in the woods, the power coming off of her in arcing waves. She’d been doing something. Searching for something. _I have to find_ … He communicates his skepticism to Eliots silently, and Eliot agrees, although his sympathy towards Margo is strong as well. Gods, the similarities between them… El’s going to fall apart over this once they have a chance to be alone, where he can safely let it all catch up with him.

“Well, that is no less a tragedy,” Jane says, picking up the thread with ease. It doesn’t escape Quentin’s notice that Margo hadn’t answered the question about which house she’d once belonged to. He supposes it doesn’t matter, any more than El’s former house matters to him now. Breaking with your House isn’t the kind of thing a person does on a whim, and it can’t really be walked back. “May I ask where you found that anchor stone, Lady Hanson?”

Margo is still holding the smooth pink stone in her hand, gripping it like the only thing she has left to keep her safe. Quentin knows why the queen has asked. He’d tried asking any number of ways on the journey back to Whitespire, and Margo had dodged him neatly every time. It’s a rare magical item. There are exactly six of them in Fillory, all accounted for, all carefully in use. This isn’t one of those: they would know if one of the existing stones had been disturbed. An unknown Fillorian magician and an heretofore undiscovered anchor stone showing up on the same day… it stretches believability to the breaking point.

Margo holds the stone forward so the room can see it better, but she makes no move to hand it over as she speaks. “Without wishing to offend, your majesties… you must know that there are other magically inclined people who live in Fillory, outside of the Nobly Housed. Sure, they don’t have a stranglehold on the magical resources but you can’t expect every little bit of it to remain under your sole control.”

_Without wishing to offend?_ Quentin bats away his continued resentment at Margo’s tone. She’s been through a lot, and it’s not like she doesn’t have a point about the Chatwins’ policy surrounding magic. Even Quentin, who respects his king and queen to the utmost, doesn’t like to think about the necessary evil of their magical control.

The king and queen continue to take Margo’s unorthodox manner of address completely in stride, and Quentin watches them exchange a glance, clearly deciding that pushing Margo for more information now will only antagonize her. They wind the audience to a close with a courteous offer to protect Margo for as long as she wishes to stay, and Margo gives a proper bow and accepts. 

Quentin wishes he could go somewhere to be alone right now. Well, alone with El. There’s a lot to process. But he knows his day is about to get even more crazy from here. The others will want his and Eliot’s full account of what happened in the woods. They’ll all dissect every bit of information Margo has shared, and decide if any of it requires action on their part. They’ll think of more questions for Margo. He tries not to think about where it all might lead. If Margo has concrete information about the Beast’s current whereabouts… does that mean they should… go after him? Gods, after so long, Quentin has accepted the threat of the Beast as almost a permanent state. His looming, invisible presence has shaped the very lives they lead.

But he’s getting ahead of himself. He knows he is.

Quentin thinks back to waking up that morning. The dread in the pit of his stomach, the way his own magic had seemed to be warning him that something was coming. Something bad.

He looks at Margo, and he doesn’t want to believe that bad thing could be _her_. But what else does he have to go on?

*****

On an ordinary day, Eliot would want some downtime after a mission, no matter how mundane. On an ordinary day, after trekking into the middle of a sinister forest and arresting-slash-rescuing a strange woman who’s clearly only telling half-truths right to the faces of the sovereigns of Fillory, Eliot would perhaps indulge himself with a nap.

Or at least he’d go to his chambers, maybe with Q, maybe alone, and flop down on his bed, enjoy a drink or two to unwind from the stresses of actually having to make a godsdamned effort. Even the most mundane assignment, a patrol that yields nothing new, can be mentally exhausting. Eliot is always hyper-aware that he and Quentin are sent on the most dangerous jobs because of a choice they made almost a decade ago, to bind themselves together and strengthen their magic in the process. They get the risky tasks, and Eliot never lets himself forget what that could mean, that his choice to ask Quentin to be his soulmate all those years ago could inadvertently lead to injury or death for the both of them.

Quentin tells him he’s being extremely dramatic whenever he ruminates on the cause and effect of this potential future disaster. But is it really so different from the way Quentin’s own brain spirals in on itself during his moments of deepest depression? When he’s convinced that the act of binding his soul to Eliot’s was a monstrous one, because now he’s dragging El down into the depths right alongside him, forcing a good soul to combine with a tainted one?

Eliot can acknowledge that perhaps he and his dearest friend both have the tendency to catastrophize. He can add it to the list of all the ways that somehow, miraculously, they’re perfect for each other.

But in any case, today is not an ordinary day. Eliot doesn’t get to unwind from the excitement of the morning, doesn’t get to rest after being slammed forcefully into the bark of an ancient tree by a diminutive woman with magic literally leaking out of her eyeballs. Instead, Fogg immediately tasks him with showing Margo around the sanctioned, public parts of Castle Whitespire, and making sure she settles in comfortably to the guest champers that are being provided for her.

Quentin offers to come with, but then Julia pulls him aside, wanting to hear the whole story from his point of view, and so they separate, agreeing to meet up for a midday meal in an hour. Before they splinter away from each other, Quentin gives him a pointed squeeze on the arm, and a silent, _be careful_ , as if he’s worried that Margo might turn on him and attack the second they’re alone in a dark hallway.

It’s a little bit annoying, but Eliot can’t do anything but love him for it. It’s Quentin’s job to worry about Eliot more than he worries about himself. The same is very much true in reverse.

“I’ve never been to Whitespire before,” Margo says, as Eliot takes her through one of the enclosed courtyards. He likes to start tours with the gardens.

“Not even as a kid?” Eliot asks, surprised. Most noble children come along on visits at a young age.

“Sixth House,” Margo says. “Unimportant, far away. We’re right near the Lorian border. We could have come, but my delightfully frugal parents didn’t want to foot the bill for the journey.”

“I’m sure the king and queen would have helped,” Eliot says. He’s not exactly Jane and Rupert’s biggest defender, not like Quentin is, but he does know that the monarchs take care of their own. Even minor nobility is treated with courtesy in Whitespire.

Margo quirks a conspiratorial eyebrow at him as they begin to wend their way through the meticulously organized flower beds. “The _real_ reason I wasn’t allowed to come up here was that my shitty mom was worried I’d see how good other kids had it, and start to realize I was being raised by monsters.”

Ah. Eliot doesn’t actually know how to answer that. Luckily for him, Margo seems to be doing fine on her own.

“Not to shock your own sensibilities,” she continues, “but a person doesn’t leave a noble house of Fillory without good reason. And in any case, my mom was right to keep me away. She managed to hold me under her sway for years, unaware of what I was missing.”

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says. It’s the best he can manage.

“You’re broken too, huh?” Margo asks, like this is a casual thing to say to someone, and not socially inappropriate to the extreme. Despite his escalating discomfort as the conversation wanders further down the path of _abusive parents_ , Eliot can’t help but like her for her bluntness. It can be exhausting, talking in circles around the important stuff, letting social niceties dictate what must be said and what must be winked at in the shadows.

“Yes. They’re dead.”

Margo is quiet for a moment, looking out at the garden, the clear sky overhead, the majesty of Whitespire, so carefully guarded, so meticulously maintained. “I’m sorry,” she says, almost an afterthought. “Did you love them?”

Who _is_ this woman? Gods, the questions she asks, the way she talks. She’s a study in contrasts. The way she holds herself, her accent, it all speaks of a noble upbringing. But the way she’s behaving speaks of someone who’s managed to leave it all behind.

“That’s not the kind of question I can answer with a yes or a no,” Eliot says. And then, feeling in the mood to be honest: “But mostly no.”

Margo nods, like his disrespect for his dead parents is not in the least bit shocking to her. “Thank you for taking me here,” she says. “I know I came on a little strong.”

It is, Eliot realizes with a strange mixture of amusement and disbelief, her way of apologizing for slamming him up against a tree, and silencing Quentin in the forest. He should resent her more for it, but he’s worked hard to forgive himself for the feral mess he’d been in the aftermath of his own encounter with the Beast. It feels right to extend Margo Hanson the same courtesy.

“We’re here to help,” he says. “That’s our job.”

Margo’s silence tastes like skepticism, and even Eliot can hear the hollowness of those words. The truth is obvious to them both, that if Margo had continued to pose a threat, if she’d lifted a hand towards Q with intent to harm, Eliot would have killed her without thinking twice about it. Fogg hadn’t sent them to the Orchards to help a fellow magician in distress. He’d sent him to neutralize a threat, in whatever form that happened to take.

The two of them reach a fountain in the middle of the gardens and without discussing it, take a seat on one of the benches nearby. There’s a comfort between them that Eliot can’t quite account for. He’s half worried he’s being played. It couldn’t be any more obvious that Margo wants something from him. From Whitespire in general. Maybe it’s simply protection from the Beast, but somehow Eliot doesn’t think so.

“It’s funny, thinking I might have ended up here if I hadn’t gotten away,” Margo says with a musing look at the castle walls across the way, her eyes scanning windows like she’s searching for the one that might have been her bedroom. “A member of the Magician’s Court. Gods, I would have hated that.”

“It’s not so bad,” Eliot says. “The people here become your family.”

“I have a family,” Margo says, snappish. “And anyway, I don’t need my magic caged up and turned into a weapon under the Chatwins. I can’t imagine a comfortable bed and good food being worth that.”

As Eliot so often does when Quentin is not by his side, he finds himself wishing for his soulmate’s presence. Eliot is not the right person to make an impassioned defense of Whitespire, the Chatwins, the Magician’s Court, all of it. He really does love his life, but he loves it because he loves Quentin, because he’s found community among his fellow magicians. If Q told him he wanted to leave, Eliot wouldn’t hesitate to follow. He doesn’t love this place the way Quentin does. But he also doesn’t hate it the way Margo seems to.

“We make our own choices,” he finally settles on. “Look, believe me, I understand the reality that most of Fillory resents Whitespire. There are a lot of good reasons for that. But you have to admit that the Chatwins have kept the realm safe—”

“Tell that to my foster parents,” Margo says, cutting him off. “You people have no idea what it’s like out there.”

Eliot shouldn’t say it, shouldn’t leverage an old, stale grief against a fresh and bleeding one, but he doesn’t like being talked to like that. “The Beast killed my parents too.”

Margo’s rage dispels instantly, but it’s not into shame or sheepishness. Instead, she sits up straight and spins to face him head-on, eyes wide and curious. “Are you serious? You didn’t say. When was this? How did it… what exactly happened?”

Eliot tells her. Somehow he can’t help himself. Her very presence here has unlocked a door inside him that he normally keeps welded shut. She hasn’t been entirely honest about her purpose, about the anchor stone, now tucked into a pocket of her satchel. About anything, really. But she was honest about the Beast, about her own fear, about her grief, and Eliot can only return the favor.

Margo listens with avidity, no room for condolence as she grills him on the specifics. She is, Eliot realizes, desperately hunting for information, for any little thing she can add to her arsenal of knowledge on the Beast. And with a growing feeling of worry, Eliot starts to understand why.

Their conversation takes them through the public parts of the castle, Eliot narrating as they go, while Margo shows a passing interest in their surroundings and a _more_ than passing interest in everything Eliot’s just told her about the Beast. Eliot even manages to do Fogg proud, fulfilling his actual purported mission while on this tour, by teasing out additional information on Margo’s family situation.

She really hates her parents, that much is clear within minutes. She’s not even shy in talking about them, and when Eliot finally asks outright for the name of her House, she just shrugs and names it, the Sixth House of the Frosted Wilds, an unimportant little estate that Eliot’s never heard of. Gods, Eliot had hated his own parents too, but he’d been ten years old when they’d died. He’s often wondered, with a guilty twist to his stomach, if his hatred had been entirely warranted, or if the caprices of youth had made the memories uglier than they really were. He tries to imagine how he’d feel if he knew the Waughs were still out there somewhere, and honestly can’t.

“Were they really so awful that you won’t even…” Eliot asks at one point, while showing Margo the hall of tapestries leading off towards the kitchen stairs. But he trails off before he can form the full thought, memories of his father’s hand, bruise-tight on his arm, the stink of his breath as he loomed over him in the dark. He’d been about to ask her why she hadn’t returned to an abusive household in a time of desperate vulnerability and need. But he doesn’t need to hear the answer to that question, does he?

Technically, Eliot has every right to call himself by the name of his House. The deaths of his parents did not destroy the House in its own right—El remains to carry on its name. But he abandoned the person he’d been with the deaths of a mother and father who had never been good to him. He’d cast off his title but retained his nobility.

It’s just… it had been different for him, because they’d died. It’s not uncommon for orphaned nobles to take on the stigma of broken lineage, because it gives them more freedom to move through society without the rigidity of a specific rank weighing him down. It had worked out for him. He’d been from a relatively unglamorous Fourth House, and he’d managed to bond himself to the head of a Third House in the very heart of Whitespire’s inner sanctum. The Coldwaters had long had favor with the Chatwins themselves. By any measure, Eliot Waugh of Broken Lineage had taken a huge step up by casting away an old title and making a play for new connections.

But what Margo had done… it’s unheard of. It makes Eliot almost _love_ her, in an intense, wild sort of way, the reckless bravery of walking away from nobility entirely. She’d gone from a life of comfort and prestige to something else. She’d walked from cold comforts to warm hardship, and from the affection in her voice when she talks about her foster family, it seems she’d made something beautiful out of the wreck.

And then she’d fucking lost it. The comparisons between them end there, because Eliot had run from tragedy more or less directly into Quentin’s arms, and he… he hasn’t lost that, the comfort of his chosen home. If he ever did, he doubts he’d have one tenth of Margo’s continued fortitude. It’s hard to imagine fighting for his own life, standing strong in the face of his grief, if he lost Q.

Fuck, that’s not something he needs to be thinking about, even in hypothetical.

“I just want him dead,” Margo says, matter of fact, just as they’re passing a couple of servants on their way towards the dining hall. She speaks loudly, not caring who hears, but the servants are professionals, barely glancing up at the mysterious new stranger, who Eliot is certain the whole castle already knows about. “I don’t really care beyond that. I just want to find the Beast, and I want to make him pay.” She stops walking for a second, and puts her hand on Eliot’s arm. When he turns to look at her, she’s very close, staring up at him with those big brown eyes. “And I want you to help me do it.”

*****

“I don’t trust her,” Julia says, coming to sit down beside Quentin in the dining hall. The full-fledged adult members of the Magician’s Court almost never eat in here. The castle chefs can easily bring the food anywhere else, and they usually gather instead in one of their personal chambers, the six of them crowded around a single table. But Margo is not supposed to have access to their living quarters. Apparently it’s a security risk. And so here they are, mingling with the younger magicians of Fillory, the students who still attend daily classes to hone their skills in service of Whitespire’s protection.

Julia and Quentin are sitting alone for now, waiting for the others to fetch their meals and join them around one of the large circular tables. Julia hadn’t bothered with niceties after Margo’s audience with the king and queen, just pulled Quentin aside and grilled him for all he was worth, dissecting each new piece of information as she managed to extract it. Her assessment of their new guest had been obvious before she’d said it outright.

“Who said anything about trusting her?” Quentin replies.

“Well, we’re letting her walk around unsupervised, aren’t we?”

“El’s with her,” Quentin says, resentful of the implication. “What, now you’re saying you don’t trust _him_?”

Julia waves a hand, brushing the absurdity of this away. “Of course I do. I’m just saying, her sob story seems practically _designed_ to garner sympathy with the Chatwins, and with Eliot specifically, does it not?”

“She didn’t do a lot of sobbing,” Quentin says. “But sure, I take your point. Broken Lineage, Beast attack… maybe she’s full of shit. But… but I believe in her desperation, even if she’s hiding some of the details. We should still try and help her, if we can. Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“Oh, Q,” Julia says. “That heart of years is going to get you in trouble one day.”

It’s already gotten Quentin in the worst kind of trouble he can imagine, of course. He pokes at his mental wards, makes sure they're secure, and then glances across the room at the line by the food, where Eliot and Margo are standing. Quentin gives himself the rare indulgence of letting himself feel it, the full extent of his love, his lust, his _want_. Because Quentin is the kind of selfish man who can have everything in the world and still want more. At the moment, Eliot is leaning in close to Margo, focusing on her words. He tilts his head back and laughs at something, the long line of his neck on display, hair flying back behind him. They seem to be getting along quite well.

“Yeah, well,” he says, turning back to Julia. “What else is new.”

“But do you believe it?” Julia asks. “I mean, everything she told you about the Beast?”

“It sounds pretty similar to the story El told all those years ago, but I don’t think that means it’s a lie. If anything it’s independent confirmation, right? We know the Beast has been… active, recently, don’t we?”

“ _Do_ we?” Julia asks.

“Well, sure. I mean, the corruption in the land…”

“We have very little evidence it’s all coming from the Beast,” Julia says. The way she says the word is in itself skeptical. Julia likes her evidence, and when it comes to the Beast, the figure who has been plaguing the Chatwins’ immortal and unbreakable rule for two centuries, all they really have are the whispers. Stories from the sovereigns themselves of the strange man, mysterious and sinister, who began to threaten their authority all those generations ago. He moves in darkness, he strikes swift and wherever he’s least expected. Tangible information is thin on the ground. But Eliot’s seen him. Eliot nearly died by his hand before Quentin ever got to know him. And they all recognize the acrid taste of his magic in the air. As far as belief goes, Quentin is comfortable believing in this particular monster.

“The Beast,” Quentin says, unwilling for the moment to argue back, “is an imprecise term, I’ll grant you that. But there is some force, some unified force, whether it be a single man or a collection of sinister collaborators, that means Fillory harm. Can we at least agree with that?”

“Look at you,” Julia says, smiling at him fondly. “Very scientifically minded, Lord Coldwater. And yes, I will accept your premise.”

“So if that’s the case, and Lady Margo Hanson is bringing us additional information about our adversary, I think it only makes sense to take that seriously.”

“I agree,” Julia says, like she’s pleased with him for seeing her side of things, even though this has been his position all along. “But the Beast hasn’t breached Fillory’s inner circle in almost two hundred years, right? This Margo Hanson of Broken Lineage is the only new factor to have arrived in our lives at all recently. I’m just saying, her information might not be reliable.”

“You think she’s a spy?” Quentin asks, trying to say it like it’s funny, like it’s impossible. He likes Margo, or he feels like he _will_ like her. It bothers him, that his life, his role on the Court, means he has to approach unfamiliar people with suspicion instead of generosity.

Julia shrugs. “The pentagram holds. You know that. Not even breaching El’s family home broke through the defenses thirteen years ago, and that was a significantly close call. If the Beast really did kill this woman’s family, then that’s a tragedy, but does it actually change anything about our mission?”

The pentagram, five Noble Houses arranged in a star with Whitespire at its center. Each one contains an anchor stone, not unlike the one Margo has, that generates a magical forcefield. Connected, and in connection with the sixth and most powerful stone housed in the castle itself, it protects Whitespire from magical attack.

It… is a controversial aspect of the Chatwins’ rule. Quentin is ashamed of it, but most of the time he tries to ignore the fact that it exists, because he doesn’t exactly know how to deal with the guilt. His own family estate, a place run now by a skeleton staff and hardly ever visited by Quentin, is in fact one of the corners of the pentagram. His own family has been a willing participant for many generations, in keeping Castle Whitepsire safe.

At the expense of… well, at the expense of Fillorian magic as a whole. The Beast’s initial appearance and attack two centuries ago had thrown magic out of alignment all throughout the realm, and the pentagram had been a way of consolidating power in the center, keeping Whitespire safe. The logic being, if Whitespire fell, then… well, then the rest of Fillory had no hope, right? Channeling so much magic for the protection of only a small portion of the kingdom means accepting that the Beast’s ongoing corruption of magic is free to run wild in other parts of the realm, and certainly abroad. The Magician’s Court does what it can to help those who are left outside of the borders, but there are only so many of them, and there are problems enough closer to home.

Jane and Rupert had already been on the throne for a century, a peaceful and prosperous time for Fillorians of all sorts, before the Beast had begun his sustained attack. Quentin’s history books tell him of the joy of this time, progress unlike anything Fillory seen before: equality initiatives that better integrated talking animals, that allowed women equal opportunity, that did away with some of the more archaic precepts of the older ruling families of the time. In other words, the ancient prophecy from the gods themselves had come true. The Children of Earth had arrived, and had been everything Fillory could have hoped for and more. The fact that they’ve had to leave some of their subjects out in the cold for two hundred years, to protect their continued rule… well, it doesn’t sit well with Quentin, he cannot lie about that. But if they defeat the Beast, then maybe things can be better again, like those bygone days of the Chatwins’ early reign.

“But she has an anchor stone,” Quentin points out, shaking off his own misplaced guilt for his position of relative privilege. “ _That_ , you have to admit, is new information.”

“That,” Julia says, “seems like the motive for the Beast’s attack, does it not?”

Quentin is embarrassed not to have put this together, but once Julia says it, it seems obvious. Thirteen years ago, the Beast attacked the Fourth House of the Hale Heathers, former House of Eliot Waugh. That house forms another corner of the pentagram.

At the time, and indeed for all of these years, it had seemed obvious why the Beast had attacked this location. He needed the pentagram to break, in order to gain access to Whitespire itself. He wanted the throne, he wanted to rule Fillory and suck up all the power for himself. Everyone knew that. But what if his motivation hadn’t been simply breaking the pentagram of protection, but acquiring the anchor stone itself? And if Margo’s foster family had another anchor stone, somehow, then the Beast going after them would explain that as well.

“What would he need the stones for?” Quentin asks.

“Well, they’re powerful conduits in and of themselves. I’m sure there are other uses for them, beyond protection. In the wrong hands…” Julia trails off, biting her lower lip as she thinks it through.

Quentin turns to see Eliot and Margo approaching, with Alice and the others coming in from the opposite side.

“Play nice,” Quentin tells her, snapping her back to the present and out of her analytical musings. “You’re right not to trust her blindly. But distrusting her on principle is just as biased.”

Julia ruffles Quentin’s hair as Margo, Eliot, and the others come within hearing distance. “Yes dear. I’ll be on my best behavior, just for you.”

Eliot slides onto the bench beside Quentin, and Margo slips in on the other side, as comfortable as if she’s known them all her life.

Quentin can’t decide how it makes him feel.

*****

Eliot holds the door to his bedroom open to Quentin, inviting him inside. It’s the end of a long day, a strange day, an oddly exhilarating day, and being alone and safe with his soulmate is exactly what he knows they both need to reach some kind of equilibrium. In fact, it’s been hours since Eliot’s thought to check on…

“Q, how do you feel?” he asks, a hand on Quentin’s back as he steers him towards the chaise lounge on the far wall. The question is basic enough, but here in the privacy of his own space he allows all the walls to fall away from his mind, like taking off restricting clothing before bed, so he knows Quentin can sense the full question: _you woke up feeling down this morning, and then we got a series of alarming pieces of information all stacked on top of each other, with hardly a pause between to digest any of it. Tell me you’re okay?_

“I feel…” Quentin says, sinking onto the cushion and turning his body into the curve of Eliot’s, his head resting on El’s shoulder. “I don’t know. Overwhelmed? How do _you_ feel?”

Quentin’s mental walls are down too, their consciousnesses swirling together, easing the strain of keeping two magnets apart. What he means by his half of the question is something like: _looks like the thing that murdered your parents and altered the trajectory of your whole life might be preparing to come back and finish the job, and there’s another newcomer from a destroyed house showing up to remind you of exactly how scared and alone you felt when you first arrived thirteen years ago, and since I know you generally like to repress all memories of that time, this must be a rude awakening. Tell me you’re okay?_

“I’m… I like her,” Eliot says. He’s not bothering to hide from Q the fact that this is a deflection. But he lets him know as best as he’s able that he _is_ okay, that he will be, in any case. That talking to Q makes everything in the world better. “I want to help her.”

“Me too,” Quentin says, which surprises Eliot a little. He’s felt an undercurrent of mistrust and fear beneath Quentin’s thoughts all day long. Mistrust is the responsible reaction to Margo’s odd appearance in their lives, and Quentin is definitely the responsible one of the two of them. “I mean… she reminds me a lot of you, El.”

Eliot doesn’t want to talk about that right now. Dead family, Beast attack, running to Whitespire for protection… the similarities stack up, and thinking too hard about where he’d come from always makes him feel like he can’t possibly belong where he’s ended up.

“She’s resilient, focused. Unafraid,” Quentin continues, in a voice firm with purpose and a hint of chastisement. Quentin can sense Eliot’s self-doubt, and is intent on cutting it off at the pass. Gods, Eliot loves him beyond all imagining. He lets Quentin feel that, too, or at least the parts he’s allowed to show. “She’s insanely powerful and yet seems to only want to use that power to help the people she loves.” Quentin pauses. “She’s got trust issues.”

“She’s incredibly attractive,” Eliot says, adding to the list of similarities before Quentin can follow up on _trust issues_. Quentin squirms next to him and smacks him on the chest. “And has a great sense of fashion.”

“She’s irreverent, inconsiderate,” Quentin puts in. “Perhaps one might even say immature. Maybe a _little_ full of herself…”

“Hey,” Eliot says, “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such treatment from you, other half of my very soul.”

“What?” Quentin says, all innocence. “We were talking about Margo.”

Eliot spills his laughter through the bond, lighting up the connection between them with amusement and familiarity. They know each other better than breathing, to the point where any hint of discord, any small piece of grit in the smooth flow of connection is immediately noticeable.

Eliot senses one of those now, just the smallest disharmony in the chord, although it takes him a while to figure out what it is that Quentin’s said that’s put him ill at ease. Then he gets it. _She’s insanely powerful and yet seems to only want to use that power to help the people she loves._ That was meant to be a compliment for Eliot, but he can’t help wondering if it’s actually true when it comes to Margo Hanson. _I want him dead_ , she’d said, and Eliot hadn’t even hesitated to agree with her. They all want the Beast dead. It’s more or less the Magician’s Court’s whole reason for being, isn’t it?

But Margo… probably doesn’t care so much about protecting the Fillorian Nobility. Not if the way she’d talked about her Noble House is any indication.

“What’s wrong?” Quentin asks, sensing the thread of discomfort.

“Weird day,” Eliot says, and it’s the truth, after all. “I don’t like this, Q.”

“No shit,” Quentin says. He tilts his head up to meet Eliot’s eyes, close to him in the gathering dark. “Say you’ll stay close to me, okay? Whatever happens, with… with the Beast, or any of the rest of it, just… stay close.”

“Always,” Eliot says, automatic. He knows why Quentin is asking, knows the spectre of Eliot’s past is as terrifying for Q as it is for Eliot. And Eliot has no problem agreeing to Quentin’s request, since staying close to Quentin is what he wants most in all the world. Especially if the thing that murdered his family is preparing to storm the castle, quite literally. Losing a family he hated was bad enough; he won’t survive losing a family he loves. 

And gods, he loves Q. He loves him in all the ways he’s supposed to love him—as a fellow warrior, a brother in arms, a dear friend, a sometimes-protector and sometimes-protectee. And he loves Q in all the ways he’s not supposed to, coveting his touch, aching for his nearness as if he doesn’t already have the bounty of Quentin’s near-constant time and attention. He has more of a right to keep Quentin by his side than anyone else, and somehow it’s not enough.

Eliot knows it’s wrong, and spends most of his days very staunchly pretending he’s not thinking about it at all. But sometimes, in moments like this one, with Q a soft warm weight tucked against him where he fits so perfectly, he can’t stop himself from noticing how easy it would be, to put a hand under Q’s chin, tilt his face up, and kiss him.

He wants it all the time, pretty much every second of every day of his life, and like a chronic headache he can usually pretend the yearning is only a minor nuisance, instead of an all-consuming inferno of shame and guilt. How could he ever, for one second, regret the strength of their bond? The fact that in the eyes of the law, of their society, Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh are as one? It’s the greatest gift of his life, the most treasured aspect of his existence. The world is designed to protect them, would never separate them for any reason, big or small.

Unless… unless Eliot _did_ kiss him, did cave to the secret shame of his feelings, and someone found out about it. Then, they’d be stolen from one another. The connection that warms and nurtures Eliot’s very soul, torn away. It hasn’t happened in many generations, the breaking of a soulbond by any means other than death, but they’ve all heard the stories. Sometimes, it kills the former soulmates outright. Honestly, if such a thing were to ever happen to them, that outcome feels like the best case scenario.

Quentin’s eyes drop closed, his mouth parting slightly as his breathing evens out. It would be easy for Eliot to let himself slip into slumber as well, stay the whole night with Q beside him. It’s not like anyone would ever know. And there’s nothing wrong in it. There’s something almost chaste, childlike, to the way Q has found the release of sleep curled up beside the other half of himself. Even if someone walked in on them like this, it wouldn’t even matter. And nobody _would_ walk in to the bedroom of a Lord Magician unannounced in the first place.

It’s one of Fillory’s cruelest little jokes, truly. Soulmates are granted as much private intimacy as they want. There’s nothing weird about Quentin and Eliot spending unlimited time together, just the two of them. They could probably even get away with sharing a bed sometimes. They _had_ , in fact, in those first weeks after Ted Coldwater’s death, when Quentin had needed someone to hold him together, physically, mentally, spiritually, and Eliot had been so grateful that in the onslaught of his soulmate’s grief, at least he could feel the tangible success of his attempts at comfort. At least he could hold him tighter as the grief spiked upwards into utter, seemingly endless despair. The despair had ended, and Quentin says it’s only because of Eliot that he’d managed to emerge from it.

It’s customary for soulmates to have adjoining rooms, to be physically close to one another. To train together, eat together, spend their recreational time in each other’s presence. Even if—when—either of them gets married, the soulmate is an important part of the ceremony, and harmony between a soulmate and a prospective spouse is taken extremely seriously.

The point is, nobody would blink an eye to see them sitting here now, Q’s head tilted against Eliot’s shoulder, breathing each other in as the light fades outside the window, casting the room in gentle shadow.

Eliot wants to allow the indulgence. In fact, he wants it so fucking much that he knows he shouldn’t let himself have it. “Q?” he says, as gently as he can manage. It almost breaks his heart to wake him, to pull away from his warmth and separate for the night. “Hey, wake up.”

Quentin mutters and groans and nuzzles his face in beneath Eliot’s neck, and Eliot bites the inside of his cheek. He hates his whole life sometimes. “Q,” he says again, this time a little louder.

“Shit, I fell asleep,” Quentin says, lifting his head up and blinking at Eliot. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I just didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“I wasn’t,” Quentin says, like he can just say things like that and it doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t claw Eliot’s insides into a bloody, ruined pulp. “I should go… lie down, I guess.”

“I’ll wake you up early,” Eliot says. “Margo wants to explore the grounds, and I figured you’d like to be there to chaperone.”

Quentin gives him a suspicious expression, trying to work out if he’s being insulted, and then sighs and pats a clumsy hand across the side of Eliot’s face, stretching and turning towards the door to his own bedroom.

“Sounds good. Sleep well, okay?”

“Only if you do,” Eliot says, and he employs every bit of his strength to let Quentin walk away, to not catch his hand as he turns away, to not spin him around and back into Eliot’s arms, where he so obviously belongs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr @Nellie-Elizabeth!


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